


Nobody Touches the Queen

by CatastrophicallyInLoveWithBooks



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, F/M, Nessian - Freeform, Nesta is a badass, You Know What I'm Talking About, angst angst angst, basically the tomas thing, but she is a sad scared and traumatised badass, rape attempt warning, this is basically a big ramble, with a tiny plot twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 19:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10471902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatastrophicallyInLoveWithBooks/pseuds/CatastrophicallyInLoveWithBooks
Summary: She knew now that hope was for fools, that the world was wretched and cruel and that hate and coldness and the walls she had built around herself were the only things that would keep her safe. She knew that to open yourself to anyone meant to show another person exactly how to hurt you in the most painful way. She knew she would never do that again.





	

Nesta didn’t think she could ever fall in love. She didn’t even believe in love. 

After months of watching her father do nothing while her mother – the woman who had loved him with every ounce of her being ever since Nesta could remember, and the woman who he claimed he loved back – slowly wilted away, Nesta decided there was no such thing as love. 

She decided that love made you weak. Love made you wait around for a miracle, instead of demanding what you needed of the people who claimed to love you. That’s what her mother had done. Nesta felt like she was betraying her every time she thought about what had happened like this but she couldn’t help but blame her mother as well as her father.

She blamed her mother for looking at him with love in her eyes until her dying breath. She blamed her for being so blinded by love that she didn’t see him for the weak, pathetic coward that he was. She blamed her for loving him and accepting his actions and not demanding he help her find a way to get what she deserved. She deserved to live…

She absolutely despised him, about that she had no shame. He loathed how he let her mother die. It was all his fault. If he really had loved her he could have gone to the end of the world to try and keep her with him. With them. 

If her father had truly loved them, his daughters, he would have tried more to make sure that they didn’t starve, didn’t freeze, didn’t grow up way before they were supposed to. She had days where she despised him so much that she wished she would die. That maybe then he would see what his complacency has caused and he would learn to take better care of Elain and Feyre. But she couldn’t do that. Deep down she knew that her death would mean nothing then perhaps more suffering for her sisters and her father wouldn’t have changed his ways. 

She hated Feyre for enabling him. She hated her for stepping up and doing what he should have done from the very beginning, caring for them and for not letting their circumstances turn her into a cold and bitter person – the two things Nesta hadn’t managed to do. 

Nesta knew how to hate. How to despise. How to loathe. How to detest. She didn’t know how to love. And she was certain she didn’t want to learn. 

But when she looked into his soft eyes, framed by crinkles that appeared more prominent when he flashed his lopsided grin, she swore she could feel her heart thawing. She watched him with wide eyes as he told her stories of all the places he had been to, all the wonders he had seen and he promised to take her away and show her everything too. He was her escape and she promised to take her away from all the hate and bitterness in her life. He clasped her delicate hand into his warm one and promised her safety, promised she wouldn’t have to worry about anything for the rest of her life, promised he would care for her and Nesta knew then that she wouldn’t mind learning how to love if this was a fraction of what it felt like - if it meant being this happy. And she was happy. For the first time in her life she was happy but only allowed it to show in secret. With him.

He told her she was beautiful every time he saw her. She didn’t believe him at first. She thought beauty meant softness and warmth, like Elain, not her harshness and ice. But he kept telling her how beautiful she was and like every honey coated word that dripped out of his mouth, she swallowed it right up. She believed everything. She believed all the words of affection and promises of liberation. 

He started telling her he loved her. He even asked her to marry him a few times and Nesta refused each time but her excuses were starting to sound a bit half-hearted by now. She was meeting him again that night, meeting him in secret like she always had. ‘Only the moon sees us,’ he would tell her and she thought it incredibly romantic. Now she realised he was making sure there were no witnesses. 

She was going to say those three little words back to him that night. She had even worn her best dress for the occasion – a dusty pink gown which he said he loved on her and claimed that the colour made her look like a spring rose. Her heart had been hammering in her chest thinking of how he would react. He would murmur those three words to her, like he always did, with a sweet chaste kiss placed on her lips, his hand always enveloping her. She thought maybe his eyes would light up, like they did when he was telling Nesta an exciting story, and the right corner of his mouth would tug up higher than the left as he grinned down on her. She thought maybe he would pick her up and twirl her around, both of them giddy with happiness. 

She didn’t get to tell him she loved him. He didn’t even get to say it to her. Just a few minutes after they had met each other his kisses started becoming more desperate, his hands gripping her flesh. She naively thought that maybe he wanted to show her how much he loved her, since she must not have been convinced by his words because she hadn’t said it back. But as his hands pushed her hips into the hard wood of the barn near his house where they had met and as his fingers dug into the skin of her hips hard enough to bruise, she became scared. When his hand groped her breast and his fingers dug into the edge of her bodice to try and tug it down, so different than his usual behaviour, a lot more forward and hurried and rough, she tried to push him away and tell him to stop. 

‘I’ve waited for so long, Nessy. You know I want you, I can’t control these urges,’ he said, as if that excused everything. The nickname that he had given her felt mocking now. She kept telling – begging – him to stop but her pleas fell on deaf ears as he pinned her with his hips and she felt the unmistakable sign of his desire. She started struggling then and he fought to keep her pinned to the wall, ripping the bodice of her dress in the process, the cold air hitting her ribs. She managed to push him away enough to lift a knee and hit him straight between his legs and when he collapsed to the cold ground she ran without looking back, tears of fear, shame and rage falling down her cheeks. 

She blamed herself more than anyone, for being foolish enough to believe that maybe love existed, for not realising that she was offering herself on a platter for the first person to ever show her kindness, to promise her freedom, for not seeing all his pretty lies for what they truly were. She blamed herself for having allowed herself to hope that maybe good things could happen to her and that maybe she could leave her past behind.

She knew now that hope was for fools, that the world was wretched and cruel and that hate and coldness and the walls she had built around herself were the only things that would keep her safe. She knew that to open yourself to anyone meant to show another person exactly how to hurt you in the most painful way. She knew she would never do that again. 

And she felt nothing but shame and rage and fear when her walls threatened to crumble for the male with warm eyes and a lopsided grin so similar to the ones which haunted her nightmares but so different all the same. While her ghost’s eyes had been blue – like ice, cruel and unforgiving, she now realised – these eyes were the colour of rich soil swirling together with moss and were teasing but gentle and seemed to see through the walls she had built up anyway. And his smile seemed genuine, real laughter and amusement hiding behind it, whereas the one she saw that cold October night was cold-blooded and ruthless, his canines ready to rip into her jugular and tear her apart like a rabid dog. 

But still, she hated herself for the glimmer of hope she had allowed herself when he saw her pain and promised to take it away, to make the one who hurt her regret ever laying a hand on her, instead of blaming her for what had happened, for thinking her less or foul or depraved as the people in her village might have. Or when he promised her safety, just like another man once had. When he swore to keep her safe, to put his life on the line to take care of her and her family. She hated herself for thinking just for a second that maybe he was different.

Because she should know better. As she stared at Elain's wet body, limp on the cold tiles in front of that damned Cauldron - noticing nothing around her, her vision focused on the delicate elongated limbs and pointed ears - and as the guards began shoving her forward before she had a chance to react, she knew that no promise of safety was ever to be trusted. She was the only one who could try to keep her and Elain safe - and she had failed. She should know that hoping is standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting for a gust of wind to push you over and letting your walls fall down means handing a person a dagger and letting them point it at your heart.

So, she built her wall up higher still. Brick by brick by brick until it was an impenetrable fortress and she was the queen inside it. And no one touches the queen.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of rambly but I was just wondering what if Nesta actually had feelings for Tomas and his attempted rape not only led her to be wary of trusting people but also to be wary of love...? Anyway, I'm tired and I should be writing an essay for university but I'm writing Nessian angst instead so here, have this. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Find me on tumblr under the same username!


End file.
